Dog Food & Feeding

Owning a dog can be a lot of fun, but it is also a big responsibility that cannot be taken lightly. Keeping your dog healthy and safe while also ensuring the safety of your family and other people is important.

From using biodegradable dog waste bags to replacing store-bought toys with safe, old household objects, pet lovers are demonstrating that they are environment lovers too. It’s only natural that the concern over pollution from pets would extend to chowtime.

According to the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention, an estimated 45 percent of all dogs in the U.S. are overweight or obese. Luckily, there are food choices, based on good science, that can help treat the problem of an overweight or underweight dog.

During any given week, your inquisitive dog has probably explored your house and neighborhood, which means it comes into regular contact with everything from dog park soil to favorite canine lampposts, all of which can harbor germs.

Increasingly, some commercial natural dog foods are including more ingredients from the same food groups that people serve on the family dinner table. These groups include not only meats and other proteins, but also grains for carbohydrates, healthy fats for omega fatty acids, and vegetables and fruits for fiber.

Canned or bagged, wet or dry: These are basic choices you must face when perusing the pet food aisle of your favorite store. "Wet" products have undergone some major improvements this year and may be the best choice for your dog. Here’s what you need to know.

Is improving your health on your list of new year’s resolutions? This year, don’t forget to include your dog on that list as well. But first, find out which vitamins and minerals your canine needs and where to find them.

When Dr. Katy Nelson, DVM, was in veterinary school in Louisiana, she saw her share of dogs with bad eating habits. "Some of the little farm dogs down there are scavengers without real homes. Their coats are dry and prickly to the touch," she recalls.

Selecting the right kibble for your dog can be an overwhelming task. After all, there are dozens of choices on the market these days. To help simplify your decision, ask yourself these seven questions:

When Daisy Lehman of Cleveland brought home her pug puppy last summer, it was with explicit feeding instructions from the breeder. "He told me to transition slowly from the food he’d been giving her to the puppy formula I was planning to give her," says Lehman. The advice was sound, but Lehman was still not sure what this new puppy food should be.

Vegan Amy Rader knows her dog, Henry, needs meat protein, but she hates the possibility that chemically processed additives are going into her 5-year-old beagle’s food. The new "natural" label on pet foods – and what that precisely means – has also puzzled the Seattle-based social worker. "It’s similar to buying organic for myself," explains Rader. "A lot of words that sound pretty good are on the packaging, but I’m not always sure exactly what they mean, and I end up spending way too long in the pet store."

Whether or not dogs can eat dairy products such as milk, Yoghurt and cheese is one of the most commonly asked questions from new dog owners. Unfortunately there is no concise answer to this, since individual dogs vary.

The expression "eat like a dog" comes from the canines’ reputation for gulping down meals of all sorts in a matter of seconds. Their indiscriminate palate, however, isn’t helping their health, and veterinarians are noticing a rise in the number of dogs with food allergies.

When Jerome Kogan’s eight-year-old pug, Grady, begs for her dinner, it’s probably not because she’s concerned about her health. "Grady starts asking for dinner about 3 o’clock every afternoon," says the 39-year-old resident of New York City. "I try to hold off until 4, though sometimes her incessant whining gets to me, and I feed her earlier. She just really loves to eat."